Iron Maidens
It's one thing to be a girl in a sea of boys, discussing topics that girls are generally not expected to know about: computer science and engineering, pneumatics and computer assisted design. But that was the experience of a few girls at Bronx Science High School who had decided to be bold, and join the school's robotics team just a few years ago. It's another thing entirely that the few girls who did join, were assigned tasks such as T Shirt design, newsletter writing and public relations. Not that there is anything wrong with those jobs - just that when you join a robotics team, you join it to build a robot. A robot building process that utilizes the science, technology and math training the students had worked hard to develop, and now wanted to put to work. They wanted to be a meaningful member of a team that would build, compete and win. So, they did what any problem solver would, they broke off from the school's only robotics team and formed their own; the all-girls FE MAIDENS (Iron Maidens) Team of Bronx Science High School, #2265, 30+ members strong and growing more successful every year. As Co-Captain Natasha puts it: There's always the difference between being accepted as a good girls team and being accepted as a good team, and that about sums up their experiences over the past several years as one of the only all-girls robotics teams in the country. As we follow them through their 2017 season, the FE Maidens carry more than their success as their charge. They have a broader responsibility to one another and to girls interested in STEM fields across the world - to show that girls can achieve in areas where they are not expected to excel, to show that one loss does not speak to the whole gender's abilities, nor does one win. To be treated as any other team would be, given the chance, to compete on a level playing field, free of stereotypes and preconceptions.
